We're Goin' on a Shape Hunt!

We introduced the concept of shapes this week in math. We will compare shapes in terms of number of sides and corners and we will work on recognizing shapes in ordinary objects. To kick off our week, we went on a Shape Hunt around our school! We used my class set of clipboards for the first time and the kids were estatic about feeling so grown up! We created a chart to draw the shapes we found around the school.

We discovered that shapes are everywhere!
The kids quickly discovered that shapes even live on the ceiling! My favorite quote of the afternoon: "Miss Bates! I think the office has a jackpot of shapes!"

When we returned to class, we compared data and shared what we had found. The results: most kids found more rectangles than any other shape. *Must be all of those bricks on our school!*

Here's what one student's data recording sheet looked like:

The kids' home assignment was to look for shapes in their homes and around town. Happy Shape Hunting!

Huggles' Breakfast

Our big book for this week was Huggles' Breakfast by Joy Cowley. We took a picture walk and made predictions about the text, noticed concepts about print, hunted for sight words, and finally read our first big book together. The readers did a wonderful job!

We created circle maps (see our class map below) and flow maps to retell the story of Huggles and his silly breakfast. (ask your child!)

The students worked in cooperative groups to sequence the events in the story and create a large flow map. I was SO impressed by their ability to work together! Wow!

Here are our wonderful groups and their final products. They were so very proud! Please check them out this week outside our door in the hallway.

On Friday, we made our own props to retell the story of Huggles' Breakfast. Our paper bag Huggles turned out so cute and the kids loved making him "eat" each type of food as they read their mini-books to one another.

Buckaroo of the Week - Brady

Brady is our star student in K5 this week. : )

Brady's mom came to read to our class as a special treat. The kids LOVED her superhero story and fun stickers. Thanks for coming and making Brady's week extra special!
Brady presented his special poster to his classmates and we displayed in all week in our hallway. We'll add his page to the class big book that grows with each Buckaroo of the Week!

What a special guy!

Classroom Tour

Welcome to K5! Let me show you around!

This year we are the Bates' Buckaroos and our room is ready for some rip roarin', rootin' tootin' cowgirls and cowboys!

We are lucky to have our own restroom and sink as well as an awesome loft! The loft provides a "roof" for our home living center as well as a quiet area for our "Peace Place" where students can solve friendship problems, calm down, or think about how to manage conflict using our "toolkit". During morning meeting we add resources to our toolkit that kids can use to handle problems - anything from a friend using hurtful words to missing mom and dad.
This is our calendar /morning meeting area. We begin each day by singing and saying letters & sounds, months & days, and other important things. We talk about place value as we count our days in school and our calendar pieces make a new pattern every month. Our calendar posters change as we master what we've been working on, so this area is always changing! You'll also notice our computer center to the left of our whole class meeting area.

These are our tables where we work together. They are named after the animals native to our state of Texas - mockingbirds, armadillos, longhorns and (my personal favorite...) horned frogs! Our word wall is on the cabinets and we will add sight words as we learn them. The colorful tubs in the front of the photo hold math and literacy manipulatives (labels coming soon!)

This is my horseshoe table where I meet daily with guided reading groups. We will work on reading fluency and phonemic awareness in need-based groups. The rest of the students work in literacy work stations while I meet with small groups of students. It is a highlight of our day!

These are our management boards for literacy work stations and centers. It's hard to see how they work, but the yellow stars have student names and they follow their "schedule" each day as we move through 3 rotations. For developmental centers, the students hang their picture beneath the card for the center they'd like to work in. There are just enough "hangers" as there are spots in each center, so it's easy for kids to know when a center is "full". Underneath the management boards, you'll where we keep some of our manipulatives and center work.

Thanks for visiting our room! We hope you can visit in person sometime soon!

Welcome to Galatas Kindergarten!

Welcome to K5 at Galatas! I am excited to begin a new year together! This blog will serve as an online scrapbook where I can share photos of what we're working on in class. This photo is a picture of our kindergarten team - we are ready for a fantastic year!